“Leiss did not deserve what happened,” she said, her voice hoarse, her eyes looking into a place past me and the walls of the stable. “He was not a good man, not really. Nor even a nice one, as I had believed. But he did not deserve to die this way.” Her misery was utter. It was often the way people reacted to death, with guilt. To be the one who survives is its own sort of curse. Her pain was a halo of green and blue.
“Not your fault,” I stuttered out, and I wondered how long it would be before it was me who caused such misery. The sea within me was shifting again, swelling and growing. Images filled my mind—it became me who had murdered Leiss with the black whip and me who killed the land and the people around me with a wave of my hand. Then I was not thinking any more. Drusl was in my arms, and we were both sobbing: her for the death of a man she had never liked and me for the death of a boy I had never been.
I do not know how long it was before we were separated. Not long, it felt like minutes at most. A slave stood by us. He stood in that patient way slaves do. Happy to stand waiting because it was the nearest he ever had to free time.
“Girton ap Gwynr?” he asked.
I nodded, wiping tears and mucus from my face. Night had crept in. Leiss’s body was gone, and the stable torches were being lit by another slave. It all seemed so very normal.
“You are wanted at the castle. Follow me, please, Blessed.”
I followed the slave up to and through the castle. Nausea kept rising as the magic I held inside made itself known. I could not shake the feeling I walked through water, not air. We reached the door to the room I shared with my master. I did not want to go in. I had pushed away what I was but events in the stable had brought it back, and the strange woozy feeling had brought anger back with it. What could she say to me? Sorry again? Leiss flayed open before me. Sorry that my life had been a lie? That I was a monster just like the creature that had killed Leiss?
But if I did not go in, she would only find me.
My master sat on the bed, her make-up badly removed, leaving streaks of grey where the black and white paint had mixed. She looked as though she was suffering, her flesh dying, and her only wish was for Xus to embrace her.
“Girton,” she said. “What happened to you in the barn? You would not answer me or Heamus when we spoke to you. He put it down to young people in love but I am not so sure.”
“I …” I began and anger twisted within me like cramp. “I saw blood on his hands and smoke in the air. The idea of … The thought of …” I found I could not finish the sentence. I heard the king’s voice in my mind: Fields and grasslands it was, all of it. In yearsbirth it would be mottled red and blue with flowers and in yearslife it would turn golden with ripening corn.
“The thought of magic?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She stared past me at the wall then ran a hand through her hair.
People left their families and travelled from all over the Tired Lands, so strong was the horror at another sorcerer having risen.
“Sometimes, Girton, those who are particularly gifted—” she paused and gave me a small smile “—are affected by places where powerful magic has recently been performed.”
It seemed as though the world took a breath. And then … and then the colour was taken from it.
“So I am not just cursed by magic. I am twice cursed to be good at it?”
She sat very still and spoke very quietly.
“Listen to me. It is very important you listen to me now. There are things I thought we would have time for but what is within you rises like a flood. I can feel it. The magic wants to be used.”
… trees melted. They sucked in their leaves and stalks and branches, leaving only bare trunks pointing at a yellow sky that stretched out as far as I could see.
“You said it was like a tool!” I roared the words. And then she was in front of me, her hand over my mouth.
“Keep your voice down!” she hissed.
He ripped the land apart, ended five thousand lives and created a souring forty miles wide.
“I would be better off dead.”
“Never,” she said, and for a moment I thought she would hold me to her again but she saw the fire in my eyes and didn’t, though maybe she should have. “Never better off dead, Girton. Say that neither in jest nor anger.” She sat back on the bed. “Do you remember when you first held a blade and I told you how you must be aware of it at all times or you would cut yourself?” I nodded sullenly. “Well the magic is like that. You must be aware of it and it will fight your awareness.” She changed tack. “Think of it like Xus or any strong-willed mount. It seeks to be master until you have shown it you are stronger. It is not clever; it has only force and simple guile.”
“Is it the same for all of us?” I asked quietly.
Ten of the men around me died without a sound.
“Some of us,” she said. But she did not look at me.
“You?”
“I fought it when I found out.”
“Did you hate yourself for it?”
“I already hated myself, Girton, but the magic did not help.”
A tear ran down her face and I felt like a cruel boy poking a sick animal with a stick. Still I spoke on.
“Why did you hate yourself?”
“Because I had been foolish.” Another tear. “There was a man, a child that died before I could give it life.”
“And Adran?”
“I needed someone and she was there. Will it make you hurt less, Girton, if I open these old wounds for you?”
I cut down the Black Sorcerer myself. He was young, terrified. Not only of the death I was bringing but of what he had done.
Like snow, silence settled between us, and like snow, my anger began to thaw.
“No,” I said. “It will not.”
“You have a great burden, Girton—” she stared into my eyes “—but, if you will let me, I will lend you my strength so it does not break your back.” She squeezed my hand and stood. “I will leave you to think,” she said, and slid out of the door.
I scraped frustrated tears from my face with the scratchy wool of my sleeves while wishing fervently I could be someone else. Soured, that was the only way I could describe the way I felt, and the pain was too much. I could not see any escape. I thought of what the king had said about the Black Sorcerer, how terrible he had made him sound and how sure he had been there was only one answer to the problem of magic. My hand found the hilt of my eating blade and at the same moment something fell from the loose sheathe that held my knife. A little bit of paper, and on it was written something that changed everything. It changed it immediately and completely.
When had she put that there? Was it before or after the death of Leiss? I was sure it could only be after, but the day was so mixed up in my mind. She needed me. I had to go, and though I could not tell her the truth, that did not matter. To be with her, to feel her hand in mine would be enough. I knew that if Drusl met me in the eaves and we were together then everything else would cease to matter, just as it had when she held me in the stables. I longed for the silence of the mind that only she could give me.
In the eaves of the castle it was so dark I could not see my own hand in front of my face. I recognised Drusl by the sound of her breathing. Her presence and the darkness and heat numbed my mind. It did not drive away the worry or confusion but made it bearable.